Small farmer gains with Green Jaguar wholesale markets

Farmers wholesale markets are being set up by Jaguar trading in multiple locations as Green Jaguar farms. These will eventually tie small farmers into a large network which when it builds up scale will benefit the individual farmer in many ways.

Currently the small farmer in most of these locations is the victim of his size and hence at the mercy of a chain of middlemen. In some locations, the middlemen essentially lock down a very low price at the farm level despite making the farmer go through all the stages of the farm to market auction chain. The farmer essentially loses title to his commodity early on in the chain and watches with despair and few other options than see his produce being sold at good margins that are mostly retained by the middlemen.

It is not easy for small farmers to break this vicious cycle. Many of them are paid weeks, if not months later for their produce while the middlemen circulate the money into other speculative activities. Also, the farmer is often left with having to deal with ongoing expenses of water, utilities, electric, fuel, fertilizers etc while he is still waiting to get paid. Many of them end up taking short term loans at high interest rates and often break down under the debts. Suicide rates are relatively high in some nations amongst the poor farmers. Meanwhile, the middlemen that have access to the end buyer or markets control this access to market, price information, demand etc resulting in the small farmers who are unable to get access to or share this information being cut out from the process.

In some locations, local governments are trying to help the small farmer and provide him with more timely market information, price and demand information, access to buyers etc but the lack of effectiveness of this approach, often lack of follow up, change of government, policies, priorities, lack of funding, in some cases corruption, diversion of funds for political and other reasons all result in poor conversion to actual measurable benefits to the small farmer.

Green Jaguar farmers wholesale markets provide farmers direct access to buyers in the locations where it is setting up these markets. In many cases, this is the first time the small farmer is getting such direct access. It is a very disruptive approach wherein many of the middlemen are being eliminated from the farm to consumer chain. The consumer is able to get quality product locally at lower prices while the farmer gains the most by holding on to bigger part of the margin.

green jaguar wholesale markets keep expanding

Jaguar Trading is looking to set up a series of wholesale produce and grain markets in a number of countries. These are being set up to connect them to a network of small farms that can then be optimized across the network to match orders, create value for small farms and end buyers and reduce transaction costs, carbon costs, energy costs, lower shipping, transport costs and provide better earnings to small farmers

This is one of best ways to ensure that local small farmers get higher returns from their farm produce whether grains, fruits, vegetables etc. Also, it ensures that the small farmer can avail of a range of benefits including time sensitive price and demand information, access to national and overseas markets previously not accessible to him.

The small farmer depended almost entirely on brokers often in a long chain and his margins could be reduced, sometimes drastically and margins were retained by middlemen while the farmer would be left struggling. 

In the Jaguar wholesale market, the trading house agents in each locality work to help build out the simple market trading platform including identifying suitable site, developing the site using local, sustainable materials and resources, putting in basic information systems initially that are to be eventually connected into a web centric platform. 

The trading offices in different market centers work with international and national clients to bring in bulk/wholesale orders. The goal is to build a very liquid, high volume trading platform that does a lot of internal matching of large buyers with a bunch of small farmers.

distributed contract farming to meet bulk demand

Jaguar trading is constantly on the lookout for large commodity orders of various grains, nuts, beans/legumes, oil seeds, fruits & vegetables, herbs & spices, various cash crops, coffee, sugar, cocoa, rubber, timber, jute, cotton etc from its trading partners, clients, industrial, food processors and bulk buyers.

Jaguar farm network strives to find bulk commodity buyers and once it has future orders in hand or potential orders in place, it works backwards to break down the order to small, distributed farm level. Based on the availability of acreage in the system, open availability from its farmer members, host of factors including distance to market, local growing conditions, weather, timing etc, it can request as many small farmers as needed to work on the commodity needs of its clients.

The farm network is always trying to balance the diverse factors in play, primarily the open availability of farm acreage from the network farmers. Also in play are important consideration like minimizing production costs, maximizing yields, optimizing logistics all the while trying to reduce the carbon foot print of the commodity shipped and also trying to reduce the energy costs of the entire cycle. Sustainability is key to long term success of the farming network.

Small distributed farms tend to make much better returns from their land holdings, labor etc than relying on selling local produce with little control on their margins in the long run.

wholesale/bulk trading farmers markets

Jaguar trading is setting up wholesale farmers markets in quite a few locations to connect local farm produce directly to bulk buyers and consumers eager to buy bulk quantities at wholesale prices. This is another component of making local, sustainable, distributed farm produce available at low prices to the consumers while improving the margins and earnings of the local farmers.

The wholesale markets also allow local produce- fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, nuts etc to be connected directly to larger end buyers facilitated by Jaguar Trading's farm network. The overall savings in the chain via aggregation, better storage, transport and overall logistic options, central, larger scale buyers can quickly add up, reducing waste, losses and improving earnings for farmers and end buyers. Additional benefits are in the carbon savings, lower embedded energy as a result of savings in distance, better management from farm to plate and increased local sale options for produce otherwise stranded with small farmers.

Small farmers in many locations have been a victim of their size, distance from markets, lack of buying or selling power etc. When the same farmer is part of the Jaguar farm network and utilizes the wholesale farmers market to sell his/her produce, the price discovery is much better, the chance to be abused by chain of middlemen is much lower. Also, with increased chance to have direct contact with end buyers in the marketplace, the farmer learns more about the consumer tastes, issues with the produce, shifting demands for different produce etc.

Small farmers are also able to procure other goods and services, farming inputs etc while attending wholesale markets, also a good location for such goods and services including seeds, seedlings, fertilizers etc.

Jaguar farm network- small farmer's best friend

Jaguar farms continues to innovate its sustainable. distributed contract farming network. Jaguar farms is implementing its farms via 'green jaguar' label. 

The local network support operators enroll small farmers from their neighborhood into the network. The farmers gain from a range of services and benefits that are a result of the aggregation of commodities, scale of network, supply, distribution and trading provided by Jaguar Trading and affiliates. 

The idea is to build a global network of small farmers which can benefit the farmers in multiple ways including new product ideas, seeds, organic/conventional farming approaches, help with getting relatively higher prices for farm produce by cutting layers of middlemen and trading/marketing product via aggregation, better storage, transportation, preprocessing and post processing, better reach for crop insurance products etc.

The network is building green houses, seed banks, seedling nurseries, tissue culture/micro propagation, bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticide facilities in select locations to allow small farmers access to seeds, seedling, fertilizers etc. Very often, farmers produce what they believe the local markets require as they have very little choice and little voice in managing a better use of their land, labor, time and resources. Being part of the Jaguar farm network allows them to get benefits starting with planting better mix of plants that can give them better profits. The collective, aggregation power of the network that works with Jaguar Trading, supply, logistics to line up large orders and large buyer clients.

Such a network can not just work on a local level but has to be international in scope as a lot of the farm output can land in distant markets. And since demand for products can originate via Jaguar Trading clients from distant markets, user groups etc, the demand flows backwards and is optimally matched by the Jaguar farm network to appropriate farmers based on a large number of factors including size of demand, local growing conditions, weather, soil, water etc, distance of farm from market, logistics, carbon foot print, embedded energy etc. There are quite a few factors to be considered and the agronomists and other technical and market experts in the network help optimize connecting farmers to the end product buyer via Jaguar Trading.

inputs for fish/poultry feed production

We see lack of regionally available fish and poultry feed as a hurdle in the launch of more distributed aquaculture and poultry operations. The developing world in many cases ends up importing large quantities of feed for their fish and poultry farms and usually, their operations are crushed when the price of energy spikes leading to spike in feed costs.

We see quite a few projects go in the red and get shut down as a result of feed costs being a high percentage of recurring costs of such operations. Lack of local processing machinery is another reason, even though feed ingredients many be locally produced.

g+c- is involved in several projects where it is producing feed like corn, soybeans, cassava etc and is utlizing regional feed mills on a processing-toll fee basis to produce animal feed. We provide all the other ingredients, vitamins, nutrients etc to create balanced feed.

This is expected to result in more fish farms and poultry operations being launched. We are also working with partners to set up own farms in certain cases and work with local contract farmers in supplying them fingerlings and day-old chicks, pullets etc for their direct purchase and often outsourcing the grow out phase wherein the farmer is paid by weight, quality, incentive bonus etc.

castor production

g+c- has been pushing the production of castor as a good option to produce biodiesel for local consumption and also as an export product. It's a short rotation crop and can help generate good yields for farmers that realize that as petroleum prices rise, the need for alternative fuels will increase demand for castor oil as biodiesel feedstock.

Efforts are going on to develop seed varieties that can yield much higher yields (100-200% higher) of castor per hectare. This is all still in the pilot stage but g+c- is expecting to arrange a couple of relationships wherein it can provide higher yielding seed varieties to farmers.

Once we have one plantation of 2000 hectares, that is the next phase following the current pilot farms, we will setup oil crushing capacity via small mills and arrange for the crude oil to be shipped to biodiesel plants belonging to our affiliates. At this stage, we don't intend to do value added processing of the crude castor oil/refining except ship it to biodiesel plants for conversion.

We have current relationships with seed suppliers in India and Brazil and are looking at arrangements to get higher yielding seeds and hybrid seeds. Current yields of the pilot farms are around 1.3 tons per hectare and we expect to raise it to 2-3 tons per hectare. Our objective is to get this done without paying disproportionately for the higher yielding seeds.

g+c- expects to have close to 30,000 hectares under castor plantings on an on-going/rotational basis in the next couple of years.

palm plantations

g+c- is working with partners on developing palm plantations for the purpose of both edible oil and utilization of crude palm oil towards the production of biodiesel.

It strongly believes in only putting deforested land where better options are not always available, under palm plantings. This is often the case in many developing countries where the deforestation, slash and burn and abandonment of land after serial cropping or otherwise has led to rapid decrease in tree cover and poor soil quality as the soil has lost most nutrients and is being heavily eroded. In many of these cases, farming would require heavy doses of chemical fertilizers or slow, long addition of composting/organic material, which is not always available with the right balances and can be very costly. The next best option is to carry out polyculture and try to develop food forests. One of these routes is mid to large scale palm plantations.

Palm including babassu and other varieties depending on locales takes a few years to establish and can be a capital intensive exercise but once established, the plantation can provide an ongoing supply of feedstock for edible oil and fuel purposes.

g+c- is working with partners to establish a few palm crushing plants for crude palm oil extraction and utilize the wastes, biomass etc for local fuel use, in the plant and also recycle as soil enhancers and composting material for the otherwise degraded soil in the vicinity.

The objective is to supply crude palm oil to regional palm oil refineries for food grade palm oil production and also to biodiesel plants as alternative feedstock.

g+c- strongly believes that regional biodiesel plants and even small scale distributed biodiesel plants should be able to handle multiple feedstocks and rely mostly on non-edible slate of feedstocks.

In the absence of scalable development of algae or other feedstocks for biodiesel, g+c- believes that alternative feedstocks especially non-edible ones will be in demand for the forseeable future. When the price of petroleum goes back over $100/barrel, the demand for alternative feed stocks will rapidly increase.

jatropha plantations

g+c- believes that jatropha is a viable option for many regions as a biodiesel feedstock and also as a crude form of fuel to meet local power/fuel needs in a distributed model and also as a revenue earner via exporting it as feedstock to many idled biodiesel capacity in the developed countries.

g+c- currently has arrangements with several nurseries in India located in Northwestern and Southern States, in West African locations and a few in South American sites. g+c- is setting up seed centers and nurseries to propagate seedlings for a few large projects (average size 7000 hectares).

One of the primary motivations is to supply seeds and seedlings to local farmers and other individuals who are interested in planting jatropha seedlings in acreage accessible to them or on sites that are not being farmed or otherwise not generally considered good for food production.

Jatropha does require water/rainfall and does prefer soil with good amount of organic matter and nutrients, although it will sustain itself under more stressful conditions.

g+c- is pursuing polyculture and intercropping with other short term cash crops, legumes etc and is also looking at pursuing vanilla planting in certain tropical/savannah regions.

The plant yields in 2-3 years and so we are well aware of the stresses faced by a farmer who can not sustain himself if he were to put bulk of his acreage under jatropha. g+c- strongly discourages any farmer from doing that and advises utilizing part of acreage for jatropha as well as pursuing intercropping etc.

The biomass wastes are also useful for heat/fuel/composting etc.

One advantage of jatropha is that it is non-edible oil source and as long as it's being planted on otherwise poor soil or readily available waste land etc, it will yield good returns in the intermediate to long run. It can produce for 15-20 years and more and needs relatively less ongoing maintenance except the labor in harvesting the seeds for the oil crushers and for biodiesel production.

our presence globally

g+c- is working directly/with partners/affiliates in promoting green positive and low carbon to carbon negative sustainble food and fuel (f&f) in an increasing number of locations, mostly in developing countries where the ideas have most leverage.

g+c- affiliates are in several locations in India, countries in West Africa, East Africa, parts of Asia, and multiple sites in Central/South America and where farms/seed operations/composting projects, sustainable farming, food and fuel production projects are utilizing our advise and direct/indirect involvment. We act as principals in some cases alongside local groups.

We typically are not involved in any kind of capital raise for any project partners. If we do invest capital directly or on behalf of other private market funds, it's usually as principals as per tight conditions imposed by investors. We are not a project finance operation in most cases, even though we have members in the group that have long histories of strong capital market and project finance expertise.

We are primarily looking at situations where there is deforested, under utilized, and often waste land that is in bad shape and we try to apply all low carbon and sustainable, local solutions to bring the soil to health while establishing viable food and fuel production projects.

We also have carbon traders/brokers in our network, including senior affiliates that can work on extracting the carbon value from our low carbon solutions.

greenhouse and other structures used

g+c- support teams work with greenhouse specialists and agronomists, often retained locally to decide the best mix of vegetables, herbs, fruits, flowers (horticulture, floriculture) products that can be grown locally depending on soil, climate, water availability, demand center needs etc and then implement a mix of open land and closed - greenhouse based solutions.An effort is made to use locally available sustainble materials, local labor and recycled materials where possible.

The teams work hard to lower the costs of materials, erection etc, while trying to incorporate current technological solutions. The greenhouses designs can range from simple to complex prefabricated structures using steel, aluminum, glass, plastics in frames and glass or various flexible to rigid plastics. The local conditions, building codes, structural loads, environmental considerations, heating and cooling needs driven by types of flowers, plants, geographical locations are all factors taken into account.

The covering material g+c- uses includes specially prepared longer lasting ultraviolet light resistant polyethylene plastics, sometimes two layers thick with air insulation layer that lowers odds of wind induced flexing. These are differentiated from common polyethylene plastics in many ways including UV resistance, longer life, quality and dependability, special additives sometimes to reduce condensation and trap more infrared radiation i.e. heat.

regions

West Africa- Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, Senegal, Mali...

East Africa- Kenya, Tanzania...

Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala...

Vietnam, Philippines..

What is the g+c- "sustainable contract farming network"

The g+c- "sustainable contract farming network" mission is to build, develop and support a worldwide network of small scale, distributed, sustainable farms that follow earth and environmental friendly farming practices. g+c- is providing sustainable farming infrastructure support, facilities, supply and trading, marketing, logistics etc to the network farms and a way to improve the margins for the farmers. By providing the advisory, tools, systems and support to small farmers and by facilitating sustainable food and energy production, supply and distribution to demand centers with minimal layers, g+c- is helping small scale farmers grow the quantity, quality and range of products, enabling them access to otherwise closed markets.

g+c- is working with multiple solution providers and its own in-house technology development for sustainable food and energy production solutions, all the while striving towards dropping the carbon footprint of the network. It believes that as the network is scaled up, connecting with more small to mid sized farms, the logistics will rapdily improve and distance to demand centers will drop. Also, it's easier to involve investors in projects involving biomass based energy production, food processing, value addition locally etc, as the network scale and size expands.